Outtakes from our reporting on Bud Selig

This Bud’s For You

Other quotes from Bud Selig from senior writer Bill King’s interview at the commissioner’s office in Milwaukee

“People have said, ‘Bud is so deliberate. He takes his time.’ Well, that’s a political judgment you have to make. And I made the right judgment. … If these problems were to get fixed, you had to be smart about them. You had to be politically smart.”

“As I got into this I said to myself, this is going to have to be changed, and the changes are going to have to be massive. But they’re not going to happen tomorrow. And it ain’t going to happen next week. And so you have to make political judgments.”

“Each club has its unique individual characteristics. Each owner has a different agenda. A guy sitting in Pittsburgh has a different agenda than the Los Angeles Dodgers. A guy sitting in Milwaukee has a different agenda than the New York Yankees, as I used to say to George [Steinbrenner].”

“You want me to give you a really candid answer? I didn’t have a clue what this job was. I thought I did … I thought I knew. But then I began to work my way through things and get a sense for what we had to do. And it became a step here and a step there. Well planned. But always trying to prove to people that we needed to do things differently and we needed to do them together.”

“I talk about the journey and it has been an amazing journey. Going back to 1964 and ’65 — you couldn’t write a script like that because nobody would believe you. I’ve loved the people. I’ve loved the experience.”

“If you said to me, ‘Sit down and talk to 30 different owners and get them all to agree on something,’ I would tell you ‘No. I don’t have time for that, nor do I even want to attempt it.’ But he does it. I mean, he is relentless. And persuasive. And not easily deterred.”
— David Glass, Kansas City Royals owner

“It’s important that he has stood in an owner’s shoes. He has sweated over attendance in April. He’s had to deal with agents who are pounding on the table asking for more money for their clients. He’s had to deal with the pain of losing a five-run lead in the ninth. So he’s got a perspective which I think is very comforting for owners who are often vilified. I think his empathy is helpful.”
— Tom Werner, Boston Red Sox co-owner

“Why can’t you disagree? I have disagreements with all kinds of people. That doesn’t make them your enemies. This country is so polarized between Republicans and Democrats. I’m not a polarized guy. And Selig wasn’t, either. He respected my right to disagree, and I respected his right to be wrong.”
— Jerry Reinsdorf, Chicago White Sox owner

“What’s best for the game is what drives him. When you see that, how can you as an owner say, ‘I’ve got my own best interest to look out for.’ How can you do that? The greater good is what’s best. And when we forget, he’s there to remind us.”
— Bill DeWitt Jr., St. Louis Cardinals managing partner

“I think his skill was tested by the fact that we had so much turnover [in ownership], which required him to go out and make converts of all these new people. David Glass buys in right before the strike. We dance him through three of the worst years in baseball. And somehow we come out on the other side and he’s Bud’s wing man. You know what I’m saying? I think that turnover actually tested his method of doing business.”
— Rob Manfred, baseball commissioner-elect

“He’s always in contact. He’s always trying to make sure he knows what’s on people’s minds. What’s worrisome to them. What’s making them nervous. What they think is good. What they want to improve. He’s always in contact with his constituency. It is an exhausting, but completely seamless availability to his owners that has allowed him to develop that sense of trust and credibility.”
— John McHale Jr., MLB executive vice president

“No matter where you look, it was his unique perspective that the game had to get better. And it starts with ownership getting along, which he did better than anybody. Perhaps only someone of his talent could have gotten these disparate people together and got them to pull an oar all in one direction.”
— Bob Bowman, MLB president of business and media

Asked what he wishes he had done differently with regard to the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, Selig responded as he has in the past.

Nothing.

“The important thing was, as a social institution — and I’ve told myself this over and over — we did what we had to do,” he said. “We did what we had to do. And I’m proud of where we are today. When I went to George Mitchell [the former U.S. senator Selig drafted in 2006 to investigate PED use], nobody in my office wanted me to do it. Oh, were they mad. The union never did speak to George Mitchell. But I did it. I did everything along the way that I felt I had to, and it worked. And that’s why we are where we are today. Yes, it was slow. The same criticism as always. But there was no other way to do it.”

It is astonishing the way Selig remembers dates and places decades later, so much so that listening to his stories can be like playing a parlor game.

Selig relishes when baseball owners or MLB executives challenge him.

“I’m a history major, so names, dates and places stay in my mind,” Selig said. “If my wife were here, she’d close her eyes and shake her head. These guys challenge me from time to time and then they lose and they mope around for a while.”

Selig frequently points to his mother’s passion for baseball, taking him to minor league games when he was a child, as the impetus for his love of the game.

Never was that more evident than on the afternoon Selig described below:

“Yes, my mother loved baseball,” he said. “I’m giving a speech in Madison, Wis., June of ’55 or ’56. At our fraternity. Pi Lambda Phi. We’re having this wonderful luncheon. My mother’s got this transistor radio. And in the middle of the luncheon, while I’m still speaking, she says — ‘How do you like that? Adcock just hit a grand slam home run.’ My father was ready to go under the table. But I laughed and everybody else said, ‘Way to go, Joe,’ and that was it.”